Women from south Asian backgrounds are twice as likely to commit suicide than the rest of the population, and there are concerns that this may be in part due to their failure to obtain help with mental problems.

Antony Sheehan, the chief executive of Leicestershire NHS Trust, said that the mental health service had effectively chosen not to engage with the Asian community.

He told the BBC: "We really should acknowledge that the impact of institutional racism is there in mental health and other health and social care services in the same way it has been recognised in the criminal justice system.

"Candidly, the real issue is just how we have chosen not to connect with the community."

The chairman of the Mental Health Act Commission, Lord Patel of Bradford, warned that unless greater efforts are made to offer support to Asian communities, they could suffer similar levels of problems to black African and Caribbean groups, which are vastly over-represented in mental health institutions.

People from these ethnic groups are as much as 18 times more likely to end up in a mental institution than the national average, and Lord Patel said that the system must be alert to signs that people from Asian backgrounds are also experiencing problems.

"If we ignore these messages then in the next 10 to 20 years we're quite likely - or very likely - to see the same numbers of south Asian people ending up in the mental health system as young black African and Caribbean people are doing now," he told the BBC.

"That's completely unacceptable in the 21st century."